


as the waves crash around us

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Original Work
Genre: Beach House, Catharsis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Gentleness, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Intimacy, Making Love, Married Couple, Miscarriage (past), Oral Sex, Past Character Death, Romance, Seaside, Tenderness, Vacation, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 16:46:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13252407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: Daniela reaches for one of his hands, finds it and gently presses her thumb into the heart of his palm. Levi only watches as she guides his hand over to her mouth and kisses the back of it before threading their fingers together, pruned and wrinkling now in the bath.“I miss touching you,” she says, voice trembling some with the truth of it. “I—I miss feeling you.”





	as the waves crash around us

   
  
  
Waves wash along the shoreline as the tide begins to swell and slowly rise, lulled and coaxed further inland by the pale face of a waxing moon. During daylight hours the water is the color of polished jade topped with foaming white froth, though it’s gone shadowy and impenetrable now, blue-black as a bruise here on the cusp of nightfall.

Daniela stands in the surf up to her ankles, the sea still warm and balmy as bathwater. Her body is tired and warm to the touch, drained and slightly chafed by a long but leisurely day spent in the ocean’s company. The weight of too many hours under the sun and drowsy fatigue is well worth it, though, when her husband wraps his arms around her waist and slides in close against her back, his nose already pressing into the hair behind her ear.

“You smell like the ocean,” Levi says softly, pressing a kiss to the hinge of her jaw. His body is all solid heat but familiar in its gentleness when he holds her like this, dropping his chin now to rest against her shoulder. “And maybe a little bit of that dead kelp we found earlier down by the rocks.”

Daniela laughs at that, catching his hands to draw them up further around her middle. “I’m sure you smell just as sweet,” she teases, and then leans further back into his chest. Despite the dwindling twilight above the water she looks down at their locked arms and marvels at how differently the sun has tanned their bodies throughout the day. Her skin has been kissed a deeper brown, dark as a raven-haired maiden eating figs pulled from the easel of a Sicilian painter. Levi’s fairer complexion hasn’t burned but it’s gone a touch pink under the new color, his arms and shoulders dusted with rusty freckles.

They’re dressed casually now in lieu of bathing suits, having gone to dinner at a little restaurant in town before slipping out of their shoes and walking down the sandy beach. Daniela’s cotton blouse is lightweight and spun softer with age, though she still longs to take it off and sprawl out on cool sheets in the darkness of their room without anything lying against her skin.

The sun finally winks out of sight below the distant horizon and Levi sweeps Daniela’s hair aside to kiss the nape of her neck. “Do you feel like getting drinks somewhere or would you rather head back home?” he asks, one hand still pressed against her hip while the other tries to tuck a flyaway curl behind her ear. Home in the real sense is far away, miles and miles from where they currently stand on the coast, though Daniela likes to imagine this place could be a home for them one day. More than that, she likes to hear Levi say it as if the dream were real already—as if all their worldly possessions were just a short walk from the edge of the sea, and they woke each morning to the distant cries of gulls and black-capped terns. But deep down, she thinks, they both know through some unspoken truth that home isn’t any place that can be found on a map. A house is a house, but home has a heartbeat.

“Take me home,” Daniela says anyway, pressing one of her hands over his own where it rests against her stomach before turning in his arms, their fingers still threaded together. “I think we’ve had enough adventure for one day.”

Levi kisses her temple, his broad hand a warm weight at the small of her back as they collect their shoes and start walking along the wet sand, footprints slowly disappearing in the lapping tide the further along they go. Daniela’s skirt flutters around her knees and Levi’s tawny hair is a mess, full of salt and mussed as it whips around in the warm breeze. The dunes whisper to each other as the last of the gulls come ashore to find a resting place for the night, calling out a farewell to the straggling beachgoers slowly gathering their blankets and chairs now that the sun has bedded down for the night.

Despite the darkened horizon Daniela spots their little cottage with ease, a cheerful and powdery blue with its lone lamppost already shining in the near distance. The shack is set back a-ways from the water and through a small grove of dunes and patches of wild lavender, surrounded by a wire and picket fence with a low gate that swings on rusted hinges. There are a few other cottages scattered further down the beach, one salmon pink and the other painted a buttery yellow, all three a bit  weathered by the elements but nonetheless bright and charming.

The blue cottage grows closer until Levi is opening the gate latch and letting his wife go ahead, their long shadows bleeding together under the golden lamplight. The planter boxes beneath the windowsills are full of white geraniums but seem sleepier in the night hour, the flowers’ tiny faces drooped but quivering some in the warm ocean air while they watch their guests come up the deck stairs. Daniela and Levi tuck their shoes under a low bench where yesterday’s small shell and sea glass collection resides, the little mementos waiting to be washed free of sand and placed on the kitchen sill. The back door’s lock clicks and Daniela follows her husband inside the tiny kitchenette before flicking on the overhead light, their bare feet hushing on the old linoleum.

She pours herself some water from the bottle in the fridge and brings the chilled glass up to her temple, letting it rest there before taking a deep drink. Levi locks the door and watches her from across the counter with a thread of concern pulled between his brows, barely there but noticeable all the same.

“I’m fine,” Daniela assures him, setting the glass down as he moves around the counter to press the back of his hand against her forehead. “Maybe a little too much sun is all.”

Levi’s hand gently drops away, the worry still there in the crow’s feet gathered at the corners of his eyes. He bites along his lip for a moment and Daniela knows he’s weighing his words out, debating whether he wants to say anything or not. “I know you don’t want me worrying,” he finally says, quiet, and then tries on a sheepish sort of smile. “Sometimes I can’t help it.”

They’d come to the coast together to escape worrying for a little while, or so Daniela had been hoping. The last week in August had been set aside and they’d taken time away from work, left the cat with Levi’s sister, and packed two small bags before heading east toward the ocean. The cottage belonged to an older woman who happily rented it out without asking too many questions, pressing the key into Daniela’s hand on the afternoon they arrived and promising there’d be fresh linens and plenty of comforts in the cabinets upstairs.

Their time on the water has been something close to perfect, lazing around on the beach and wandering carefree in the seaside town, looking in shop windows at taffy pullers and candle makers and eating lunch at corner cafes while sea breezes blow in off the water. Nights spent on the deck drinking cheap and fruity wine with a small bonfire lit, watching the sea come and go in rolling waves of black satin. No schedule or obligation beyond the quiet comfort of keeping each other’s company.

It’d been something they needed after the past year. A reprieve, welcome amnesty from the heavy pull of grief, or at least enough distance from the everyday and mundane to be able to draw breath without feeling the echo of loss. Family and friends could only do so much to help or empathize outside the circle of such personal sorrow, and their pitying looks or hugs only acted as a sort of greeting-card reminder on the worst days. Even Daniela’s mother had been too far away to do anything more than call, busy with work in Peru and the ailing health of her own elderly mother.

Daniela doesn’t want to forget the baby she’d lost before it was even born, but she wants to forget the pain that was delivered on the day of their daughter’s death. Scrub it from her skin and bones like a shadow that lingers no matter how much time passes or she and Levi try to keep moving forward despite what feels so inescapable. And it haunts the both of them still, like everything from before in life had remained otherwise untouched but somehow moved two inches to the left and cemented there.

“I think I want to make use of that tub and take a bath,” Daniela says, leaning into Levi with a palm braced against his chest. She tips her head up for a kiss and he returns the gesture in kind, a light but sweet brush of lips. “Are you going to bed?”

“Probably,” Levi says, reaching up to press the heel of one hand into his eye. His features have gone a tad sleepy but are far from the weariness she’d seen on his face in months past. “Might stay up for a little bit.”

The kitchen light flicks off and they follow each other up the narrow wooden staircase, each step worn and polished by the passage of a thousand bare footsteps over the years. The cottage’s second story is tiny, barely more than a loft, though there’s enough space for a modest bedroom overlooking the water and a small bathroom through a sliding door. Even in the dark everything seems bright, all the white furnishings and blue linens aglow in pale moonlight.

Daniela moves around the bathroom while hot water fills the tub, piling her hair up on top of her head and letting her toes curl in the soft rug in front of the vanity. She steps out of her skirt and pulls the cotton blouse overhead, inspecting the new color on her shoulders and chest and how it contrasts with what was hidden under the straps of her bathing suit. Her stomach is paler than the rest, something she’d endeavored to cover while they were out on the sand and water. There was a peculiar mix of shame and sadness she still couldn’t quite fathom about the few stretch marks low on her belly, something too heavy to think about beyond the need to hide them from anybody who may be looking.

She unhooks her bra and slides her panties over her hips and steps away from the mirror to test the rising bathwater. Levi moves around in the bedroom behind her beyond the open door, his shifting weight making the floorboards creak with each step. He must be turning the bed down or opening the windows, judging by the clean smell of ocean salt drifting into the tiny bathroom.

Daniela slows the water to a trickle and eases down into the tub, hissing a little against the sudden heat. She rests there for a moment and lets the hot water soothe her tired feet and the muscles in her calves, not doing much more than listening to the waves crash along the beach outside. The old claw-footed bath is deeper than the one at home and she sinks further down in the water, letting it ripple and lap up over her chest. There’s a lavender soak in a glass jar on the shelf by the vanity, though Daniela’s content enough to leave it untouched for now.

She’s debating whether she wants to start washing up or not when she hears the pad of feet on cool tile, and when she opens her eyes Levi is standing in the open doorway, silhouetted against soft lamplight behind him in the bedroom. He’s still dressed in his undershirt and shorts, and in this lighting Daniela can see how much sun he’s gotten along the high points of his face and cheekbones during the day.

“You doing alright?” he asks, lingering there with his fingertips on the faintly peeling whitewash of the doorjamb. Daniela hums and shifts in the water so her knee pushes up, far from shy about him seeing her in the bath after so many years.

“Just closed my eyes for a minute,” she says, watching as her husband crosses the threshold, going to the sink to pick up his toothbrush and the tube of paste they brought to share. “Water feels nice.”

“Not so gritty, huh?” Levi says around a mouthful of toothpaste, glancing over as he scrubs and brushes. He looks boyish and silly, grinning at her with his beachy hair and face full of freckles, and Daniela can’t help but smile. She remembers that same expression from the summer they met, on the night he took her to the fair and won her a stuffed bear at the ring toss booth.

Levi arches a brow and spits in the sink, bringing a cup of water up to his mouth to rinse before barking out a little laugh. “What?”

“I don’t know,” Daniela says, words somehow not enough for the jumbled knot of feeling rising in her chest, nostalgia and adoration and so much more than that.  She tries to come up with an answer for him but falters, deciding to try something else. “Come over here.”

Levi hesitates for a fleeting moment but then lowers the lid on the toilet as if to take a seat there. He seems to reconsider and finally folds his long legs beneath him with a faint creak, settling down on the rug next to the bathtub instead. He leans back against the wall and lets his eyes wander over to Daniela’s, cornflower blue meeting honeyed brown. They watch each other for a beat, and then he slowly brings a finger up to trace around the delicate shell of her ear before letting it drag lower along the curve of her jaw.

“You look like a mermaid,” he says, eyes crinkling up in good humor when she cuts him a sideways look. “A beautiful sea goddess washed ashore, sent to bewitch mortal men like me.”

“I look like a hot mess,” Daniela snorts, though she doesn’t complain when he reaches for the soap and dips a hand into the warm water to start working up a lather. Levi reaches for a fresh washcloth and suds it up between his palms before reaching to wash around Daniela’s neck and shoulders, not making any move to rush even though his arm is bent at an odd angle over the rim of the tub.

After a few moments he sets the cloth aside and works his fingers into the muscle on either side of Daniela’s neck, thumb pressing into any knotted tension there. She doesn’t melt into it right away, though by the time Levi has started gently scratching around the base of her skull through damp curls she’s sunken low and languid into the bath.

“When I asked you to come over here,” Daniela murmurs, lulled now under the spell of her husband’s hands, “I was kinda hoping you’d get in with me.”

Levi’s fingers stop and fall away, his expression brightening even though a touch of blush makes the tips of his ears burn red. Almost as sweet and bashful as he was on that first date nearly nine years ago, if it weren’t for the finer lines beginning to set up around his eyes and mouth now.

“Oh,” he says, happily surprised, and then ducks his head a bit. “Do you think there’s enough room for the both of us?”

“We can find that out here in a second,” Daniela says, playfully flicking some water off the tips of her fingers at him. “C’mon, before it gets too cold.”

Levi braces his hand on the side of the tub and hauls himself to his feet, his wedding band clinking against the white ceramic. He pulls his undershirt over his head without much fanfare and then slips his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts, shimmying them down over his hips before leaving everything in a pile on the floor.

A warm shiver crawls up Daniela’s spine while she takes in the familiar sight of her husband’s body. Neither of them look quite like they did on that warm summer night nearly a decade ago, and Levi’s figure is a testament to the turning wheel of time just as much as hers is. He has an appendectomy scar slanted at an odd angle under his navel, the mark old enough now that it’s stretched and gone pale pink with age. His upper thighs haven’t seen anywhere near as much sun as his chest and shoulders, the skin there softer and smoother, his natural complexion light as peaches and cream.

“Scooch up,” Levi says softly, fingertips grazing along the top of Daniela’s shoulder. When she does he steps a careful foot into the warm water, testing the heat before steadily lowering himself down until he’s settled in behind her.

He reaches again for the damp cloth without speaking, soaping it up to begin washing easy circles over Daniela’s shoulders that sweep lower to the middle of her back. She lets herself relax more against his body as his hands slowly move to her front, their warm skin flush and pinking while the faucet pours hot water into the tub at a drizzle.  

It’s been a while since they’ve done this. Bathed together, for sure, but neither have they simply reclined together in some moment of quiet intimacy, touching and wedged together but not yet fueled by the desire or need for anything but gentle closeness. They never stopped sharing a bed after the baby was gone, but Daniela knows now that there can be miles of distance between two people even when they are only inches apart.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, so quiet she wonders if Levi even heard her at all. He’s been washing her arms, long legs braced around her own in the water.

Levi clears his throat but never stops his movements, methodical and almost trance-like. “I never went anywhere,” he says, thumbs skimming along her ribs as his hands lazily move to cup water over her sides. “You know that.”

“I know,” Daniela almost whispers, tipping her head to rest against his shoulder even though their eyes don’t quite meet. She feels every part of him at her back, dense and warm, more reassuring and comforting than anything. Levi had never once left her alone when she needed him, during or after what happened. He’d dealt with the doctors and curt hospital receptionists, coaxed her out of bed on Sunday mornings and washed her hair in the kitchen sink, spent long nights with her on the empty nursery floor and held her close while she cried.

Close, but not the kind of burning closeness Daniela is thinking of now. She wonders if she has the courage to tell him out loud, if she can ask for his hands, his mouth, and his body to cover hers and fill it with something bright and brimming they haven’t shared in so long. He would give her anything she asked for, she knows. He has loved her in every other way, even in those times she didn’t have the voice left to thank him for it.

Daniela reaches for one of his hands, finds it and gently presses her thumb into the heart of his palm. Levi only watches as she guides his hand over to her mouth and kisses the back of it before threading their fingers together, pruned and wrinkling now in the bath.

“I miss touching you,” she says, voice trembling some with the truth of it. “I—I miss feeling you.”

Levi squeezes her hand and presses his nose against the crown of her head, words half-muffled in the softness of his wife’s hair. “I wanted to wait until you were ready,” he says, and goes quiet for a long moment before he can speak again. “God, Dani, I would do anything for you.”

“Then touch me,” Daniela says, lungs nearly wrung breathless, bringing Levi’s hands to her bare chest while she twists around to try and find his mouth. Their lips meet and it only makes Daniela want more, feeling that flicker of desire in her stomach start burning heavy with greater need. Water sloshes around them in the tub but Levi runs a soothing palm down her front, past her navel until it’s cradled between her legs. His mouth is at her neck, kissing soft and unhurried despite the barest scratch of new stubble.

“Like this?” he murmurs, emboldened now, not so much teasing as asking for permission to keep going.

“Yes,” Daniela says, pushing herself against his hand. “Just like this.”

Levi’s fingers dip lower to part through the petal-softness of her. He circles her clit a few times with the pad of his finger, making a short jolt of pleasure lick up Daniela’s spine, but then pulls his hand away again just as soon as it’d arrived.

“Not in here,” he says when she has to bite back a whine. Levi’s voice is deeper now, not so playful but still edged with a hint of familiar laughter. “Somewhere I can taste you without drowning.”

The steam in the bathroom and a rush of desire has left her almost lightheaded, but Daniela nods, sitting forward so he can rise from behind her. She pulls the drain plug and Levi holds out a hand for her to balance while she steps onto the bath mat, the two of them standing there together while water runs down their legs and leaves dark footprints on the thick fabric.

Levi wordlessly takes her by the hand and leads her into the bedroom where the air is cooler and breezy coming in through the open window. Daniela falls backward onto the soft duvet, still rumpled and half-made from that morning. She looks at Levi and he looks back at her, eyes so clear and bright in the lamplight, though they’ve taken on a new depth she hasn’t seen in what feels like an eternity.

“Lay back for me,” he says, and Daniela does, dizzied and already aching for his mouth. Levi kneels down between her legs and brings his lips to the inside of her knee, licking at a droplet of cooling water clinging there. His hands run down the sides of each calf and make chills crop in their wake, mouth still busy sucking the tiniest of love bites on the softer skin of Daniela’s inner thighs.

She can hardly take it, wanting to twist and arch up into his touch, somehow impatient and saturated with wonder all at once. There’s the overlapping urge to squeeze her eyes shut and then gaze at him while he bows before her, like this is some act of worship she doesn’t know if she deserves, sacred and profane coupled in the same instant.

Levi hooks one of Daniela’s legs over his shoulder and then his mouth is there, delightfully hot and eager, using the flat of his tongue to lap open the silken-slick heat of her. He hums there between her folds and she tries to relax, breathing deep from her diaphragm until he ventures further to tease around and suck on the swollen nub of flesh his fingers had found in the bath.

“Levi,” Daniela whines, grinding up against his mouth and chin, hands fisting in the blankets around her. “Oh, God.”

She can feel when he smiles, leaving another kiss in the crease of her thigh before moving lower again to press his tongue against her entrance before dipping in further for a taste. The mere thought of all this has a flush spreading over Daniela’s chest and cheeks, burning her up despite the cool night air. All she can seem to hear is the distant sound of the ocean crashing and her own heart fluttering like a caught hummingbird in her chest.

Levi licks up to her sensitive spot again and she digs a heel into his shoulder, trying to arc her pelvis up for more, anything, getting a hand in his hair and holding on for lack of anything else to do.

“Right there,” she pants, cursing a low and dirty word in her native tongue when he does it again and pleasure begins building low at the base of her spine. He swirls his tongue and laps at her in earnest now, no stopping or detouring left to be done, slipping two fingers up into the tight heat of Daniela’s body and crooking them just right while he drinks from her like his only oasis.

She comes with her thighs clamped around her husband’s head and a tender fistful of his hair in hand, the sensation of release a vibrant, rolling shiver that makes her toes curl against his back. It’s just enough to wear the edge off without any pleasure being overspent, though when he pulls his fingers free she only wishes he’d come back with more.  

Levi rests his cheek against her lower stomach to catch his breath, and when Daniela reaches down he comes up to her willingly, sprawling out next to her in the plush bed. He grins and she kisses him without pause, sucking her own taste off his bottom lip while she holds his face close enough for their noses to bump.

They do nothing but lie together and breathe for a while, comfortable in that and the sounds of the living ocean. Daniela shifts around to press her body closer to Levi’s and when she does she can feel his arousal between them, the long line of his cock pressing against her belly like a brand. He isn’t fully hard but she feels guilty for having forgotten him in the wake of her own climax, though that pleasant ache is still between her legs, throbbing when she thinks of his heavy body sinking into the welcoming softness of hers.

Daniela reaches down and takes his length in hand, giving it a tight stroke from base to tip before thumbing over the soft head flushed a darker pink. Levi groans and his eyes open wider to find hers again. His lips part in silent question, body bowing closer into her touch.

“You don’t have to—,” he starts to say, and then trails off as the line of his throat tightens and bobs. But then Daniela kisses him, swallowing any of the other words that may have fallen into the sheets between them, biting her way into his mouth with a nip against his lips.

She feels fiery and brazen, more than ready and willing to flip Levi over onto his back and fuck them both into raw, searing ecstasy—until she feels him cup her cheek, the gentle pressure of his hand holding her face there while he pulls back just enough to turn the kiss into something slow and chaste. Daniela blinks at him but leans into his more subdued energy after a second, letting her eyes fall shut when Levi’s hand finds hers where it’s still wrapped around his cock, slowing her movements.

His wedding ring is resting against the height of her cheekbone when he leans in and kisses her eyelids, one at a time, and then the corner of her mouth. So simple, wordless and intimate, and it makes emotion rise up in the back of Daniela’s throat like a hot welt until her vision begins to brim and blur.

“Slow down,” Levi says, whispering it against her temple as his fingers reach around to trace up the notches of her spine, slow and soothing. “I want you right here with me.”

“I am,” Daniela says, and then her voice breaks in half between laughter and a sob. The tears come and she presses her face into Levi’s neck, angry at herself for crying but unable to hide it from him now. “I am."

“You know I hate to see you cry,” Levi murmurs, more of a lament than any means to make her stop. He shushes Daniela softly, hand cupping around her neck now with his thumb resting over the flutter of her pulse.

Daniela can feel tears on her cheeks and knows they’re burning into her husband’s skin. She tries to breathe through the hurt but holds on to him tight, folding herself further into his arms. “I just want us to be okay again,” she says, lips ghosting against his throat. “I don’t want to miss her anymore.”

Her. Daniela can’t say their daughter’s name, but Levi knows who she’s talking about. He doesn’t stiffen or pull away in the presence of their shared ghost, though, only presses his lips to his wife’s forehead and holds them there in an unending kiss, using the pad of his thumb to wipe against the dampness under her eyes.

“Don’t think about things that hurt, baby,” he says, sounding tired but still so strong. “Don’t think about anything, just tell me what you need.”

There have been times throughout the past year when Daniela wanted to feel weightless, completely submerged and still, sunk like a lonely stone to the bottom of a depthless pool. Levi somehow kept her tethered during all that time, a pinch of light guiding her through the dark, though they’d been more like two haggard sailors tossed from one end of the sea to the other in a storm they never saw coming.

Now, she needs the opposite of that weightlessness and turmoil, and she needs Levi.

“You,” Daniela murmurs against his neck, sliding her leg between his knees until their bodies are flush together. She swallows against the lump in her throat and finds his mouth, unafraid now of the asking. “Just you,” she says again, the words soft against Levi’s lips, shaking but true. “Hold me—love me.”

Levi kisses her in wordless promise while he nods, broad hand sliding down to the small of her back. He moves around and over her and Daniela finds herself nested in the soft bedding, warm and aflame in all the places his touch trails over her body. His mouth at her breast and then kissing the stretchmarks on her belly, his fingertips following the grooves of her ribs and then reaching up to pull her hair free so it falls loose around her head in a halo. Levi gets a hand under her hips and slides a pillow beneath when she lifts them, and only when she’s comfortable does he ease up between his wife’s legs.

Daniela pulls him into the cradle of her thighs, their bodies not yet joined but thrumming in all the places they touch. Their eyes meet in the low light again, faces only inches apart, and Levi drops his mouth to kiss against Daniela’s hairline. When he pulls back to look her eyes are still wet and shining, though with something other than fresh tears now.

“Tell me when,” Levi whispers, reaching down to hitch one of Daniela’s legs around his waist, shuddering when he feels her slick heat part beneath him.

And Daniela needs him, needs him close enough that maybe she could hold on now and never have to let go again, their two hearts halved and seamed into something shared and whole and unbroken.

“Right now,” she says, and when Levi finally takes his cock in hand and pushes into her she can only gasp, body arcing up into his on instinct. Levi’s mouth covers her own and Daniela moans long and low when he angles his hips and fills her up to the hilt with a deep thrust.

They stay like that for a beating moment, breathing against one another while their bodies adjust to the welcome shock of fitting together so tightly. There is the sound of the ocean again, tireless and unending in its rolling cadence, and the call of some distant night bird winging along the coast. One of Levi’s hands comes up to touch the side of Daniela’s face, reverent and full of some unspoken promise, and only then does he begin to move.

He rocks into her without hurry, the sweet slide and friction drawn out into a gentle rhythm that builds slowly like a deepening dream. The give and take of shared momentum, and Daniela knows in her core that they were made for this—not as man and woman, not even as husband and wife, but something beyond that. Two burning stars plucked from the sky, maybe, caught and coupled together in some boundless union.  

Levi braces himself and shifts his weight, the new angle making Daniela cry out as he reels back and plunges back in. She clings to him for lack of anything else, letting him carry her there now that time doesn’t seem to exist, bringing her legs up to wrap around his hips and draw him further into the heat of her desire.

It won’t be able to last like this, not forever, but Levi keeps his thrusts smooth and languid and kisses Daniela’s throat, runs his hands up her sides, brings his mouth down to graze his teeth over her nipples and then reaches between their bodies to find the sensitive point above where they’re joined.

Her hand meets him there, touching the stretched place where he glides in and out of her, and she’s dazed almost, breathless and overwrought in the midst of what they’re making. Her lungs tighten in the same moment Levi’s breath catches in his chest, and the tears threaten again but more out of such overwhelming love than any sadness.

“Levi,” she gasps, feeling the sweat on his body, how the power in his hips is beginning to urge her further up the bed. Daniela knows she’s close, such sweet pressure building and pushing her further to the blinding edge. “Please, _please_.”

“Let go, baby,” Levi tells her, hair falling over his forehead while he moves above her and all around her, somehow everywhere at once. “Let go for me.”

Two more long strokes and Daniela’s undone, clenching and bearing down as her body tenses and unravels all at once in a wave of pleasure that crackles down her spine and into the tips of her toes. She nearly sobs from the bliss of it all, fluttering around her husband’s girth as he thrusts into her tight slickness and fucks her through the rippling peak. His rhythm has turned into something more uneven and wild now that he knows she’s found her release, pumping in and out of her body with short, relentless strokes.

Daniela mindlessly coaxes Levi along, pulling him in deeper despite the weakness in her thighs, heels pressing into in the curve of his ass to bid him to go faster, harder, anything he needs to take him there. She lets him hitch her hips up and dig his fingers into her thighs, grip tight enough to leave bruises scattered like crushed lilac petals across her dark skin.

There is a moment where he seems to pause, whether to regroup or rethink she doesn’t fully know at first, and then makes as if to pull away and take his own cock in hand again, intent on finishing himself off. Daniela feels the sudden emptiness between her legs like a void and looks up Levi through the dim light, their eyes meeting there to reflect a hidden fear neither one can seem to say aloud.

“I want you to,” she says, soft but urgent, wanting nothing more than the raw sensation of her husband finding his end in the depths of her body, to see and feel him shake apart held in the circle of her arms.

Levi nods and bows over her again, letting the head of his cock slip back into her entrance. Daniela reaches to pull him back down against her, wrapping her arms and legs around him until he’s fully sheathed inside her again, and he groans but gives a slow roll of his hips, grinding so agonizingly sweet again her humming nerve endings.

“I love you,” Levi says, mouthing the words and a kiss against the soft skin below Daniela’s ear. Another thrust of his hips has his length curving up against an unseen spot that makes her eyes flutter, and she breathes out his name like a prayer. “More than anything.”

“My love,” Daniela whispers to him, unashamed, reveling in this moment as it exists between them, knowing that in another universe it must go on forever. She thinks of their love and what it can make, and then thinks of their love and how it survived the rending of loss.

“We can try,” she says, willing tears not to fall once more while she holds Levi so desperately, scared but still wanting so badly to carry their baby into the world, to hear her cry and let her nurse, to hold her in her arms and rock her tiny body to sleep. “We can try again.”

Levi kisses her then, long and lingering, his fingers reaching up to push through her curls and gently skim the crown of her head. He doesn’t speak but he begins to move with more fevered purpose, as if her words were the only cue he’d needed to finally plummet toward his own undoing.

It doesn’t take much longer beyond that. Levi allows himself only a few more thrusts and then his hips stutter and his muscles go rigid, cock sinking in as deep as his lover’s body will take him. Daniela feels him swell and pulse inside her, gasping in broken relief as his body finally relents and spills against the entrance of her womb. Levi’s length twitches and jerks as another wave of warmth fills her up to the brim, so much she knows she’ll be dripping with it, and then he seems to lose all prior resolve and strength, trembling as he lets the drawn bow of his body fall and his face drops into the crook of her neck.

“Oh, Dani,” he says, breathing harsh and ragged, incapable of anything else for the moment. He sounds wrecked and Daniela lets him rest against her while his weight is still a comfort, his cock slowly softening inside her but still buried in to the hilt. A short-lived intimacy every time and yet she can’t bring herself to refuse it despite their overheated and sweat-licked skin, wanting Levi as near as she can have him until they’ve finally spent their bodies to the limit of their own will and strength.

Daniela pushes damp hair away from his forehead, the two of them gone drowsy and wrought heavy with love, content to bask in the moonlit glow of what they’d made. She can feel as Levi’s thudding heart gradually slows into something more calm and measured, his chest no longer heaving where it’s flush against hers. When he does finally slip free from her body he immediately brings a hand up to cup against the dull but lovely throb between her legs, dropping his lips to her chest and navel before flopping over into the mussed sheets and pulling her body to him once more.

Daniela tucks her head under his chin, soothed by the soft hum of his steady pulse beneath her ear. They should go to the washroom and clean up before they sleep for good, but the moment’s stillness doesn’t need to be broken. Levi reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp, bathing them over in grey shadow, and then he holds Daniela in his arms and doesn’t let go.

The night will go onward from here, their minds and bodies finally succumbing to the heavy, well-won pull of deep and dreamless sleep. Daniela will wake in a few hours to the feeling of her husband spooning into her from behind, and she’ll rock back onto Levi’s cock until he spills into her again just before the break of dawn, the two of them falling back under the veil of drowsy slumber while still bound together in a lover’s knot.

It’s far too soon to know or say for sure, but Daniela finds that she thrills at the idea of a tentative budding of new life—the brightness and thumping heartbeat of a reborn vision in her mind’s eye, her and Levi standing with another little soul yet unnamed cradled between them. She has always been able to sense it, though the sight had left her for many months once it was torn by loss, suddenly gone and not since rekindled.

But here and now in this shared bed, with the ocean’s ceaseless turning outside the cottage window and her husband’s wide hand held against the softness of her belly, familiar in its tenderness, the possibility of new hope seems real enough that she thinks she can already feel it.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to follow me over at dreamrafters.tumblr.com for forthcoming original works :) Thanks for reading!


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